PARIS (AP) — The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday he was concerned that the UN sanctions on Iran could escalate the standoff with the US and its European allies.

CAIRO (AP) — Arab leaders were deeply skeptical of the US plan for Iraq, a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to sell it to them. Kuwait’s emir told Rice that America should work with Iran and Syria, officials said — something US President George W. Bush has …

RABAT (Reuters) — A Moroccan man returned home to find his 11-year-old son hanging dead from the ceiling, a newspaper said on Thursday, the latest victim of a macabre game in which children mimic the death of Saddam Hussein.

ANKARA — From Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan down, Turkey’s politicians are threatening military intervention in northern Iraq to crush Turkish Kurdish rebels hiding there if, as seems sure, US forces fail to tackle them.

REVIEW TOPICS: Russian Federal Security Service chief issues high security alert over terrorist threat Russia’s security services order to suspend cellular phone services to reduce risk of terrorism act Russian security experts consider warning on terrorism acts a provocation FBI does not comment on ways Russian secret services obtained information …

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani said that the United States and Britain are seeking to forge an imaginary enemy in order to justify their presence in the region.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki stressed that Tehran views the Iraqi government as responsible for the immediate release of the Iranian diplomats kidnapped during an earlier raid by the US troops in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini here on Wednesday strongly condemned the terrorist blasts in front of a university in Sadr town in Baghdad, and said that occupiers’ passive interaction with terrorist groups has increased Iraq’s instability.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Belarusian Defense Minister Lieutenant General Leonid Maltsev is due to visit Iran at the head of a high ranking delegation next week.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- A senior Iranian nuclear official stressed that his country is continuing its nuclear activities based on pre-specified schedules and that the UN Security Council resolutions would leave no impact on Tehran.